Edna Jackeline Vazquez Completes Four Deserts race series

It was an honor to be apart of Edna's Four Desert Race series celebration. She truly is the embodiment of ONE DEGREE BEYOND

On Nov. 26, 2016, Edna Jackeline Vazquez became the first Mexican-American woman to complete the Four Deserts race series by Racing the Planet. The annual series consists of 155-mile routes through the world’s most arid desert (Atacama, Chile) the windiest desert (Gobi, China), the oldest desert (Namibia, Africa) and the coldest desert (Antarctica). Completing all four is one of the most demanding and extreme achievements in ultramarathon running.

For her accomplishment, the Red de Talentos, UNAM Chicago and Raiza Mendoza granted Vazquez the Outstanding Achievement Award in July 2016. They also recognized her commitment to promoting education in the community and her work spreading the word about the importance of organ and tissue donation within the Latino community for the nonprofit organization Gift of Hope.

Vazquez grew up in Monterrey, Mexico, participating in ballet, gymnastics, swimming and basketball before discovering her love of ultramarathon running, which she has been doing for 19 years through the varied terrains of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Antarctica.

Her high school education at the University of Monterrey was based in systems of automation and computer language programming. She then went on to get her bachelor’s in higher education and human relations. She continued her studies with specialties in social psychology, human behavior and work/sports psychology from the University of Seville in Spain, before getting her MBA from Robert Morris University in Chicago.